Environment Minister was warned about construction threat posed by new management plans for Rila, Pirin and Vitosha

The environmentalists urged the state, commissioner of the three plans, and the Environment Ministry, responsible for the spending of EU funds on environmental projects, to return the three draft management plans for a complete revision. The revised plans should be presented for public consultation before being submitted for approval to the Environment Ministry and the Council of Ministers.

The risk of losing nearly 8 million leva EU funds is quite serious. Due to the poor state control over the contractors’ work on the management plans, the latter do not fulfill their purpose. At the same time, the contractors have deliberately worked towards removal of new construction bans in Rila, Pirin and Vitosha by changing the parks’ zoning and regimes. The responsibility for construction permits is shifted from the Council of Ministers to the municipalities. The opportunities for public consultation of the plans have also been purposefully limited.

The Environment Ministry announced that the approval of the new draft management plans for the three parks will comply with the corresponding legal norms and the parks’ purposes. In order to improve the opportunities for public consultations, the Regulation on the development of management plans for protected areas will be updated.

The environmentalists reminded that they have repeatedly sent signals for violations during the development of the three draft management plans but to no avail. Despite the poor results the contractors of the plans for Rila, Pirin and Vitosha parks have received the majority of their payment. As a result of such practices the draft plans offered for public consultations are extremely incomplete and faulty.

“For the Nature in Bulgaria” Coalition has not forgotten the scandal in Paris where representatives of the Bulgarian Ministries of Sport and Tourism lobbied in front of UNESCO for construction development in Pirin National Park, a World Heritage site.